Now one of the best books on the early airship reports along with there pilots no less is written in great detail and researched excellently. The
book is titled "operation trojan hoarse" and written by the great late John Keel.
I own a 1st edition and find myself returning back to this Gem to read over the early stuff.
Some of the accounts are just plain bizarre and it's interesting that the sightings of the time recorded would kind of fit with what would be classed
as "the latest progression" in aviation I.E. airships,balloons with a pontoon below with pilot and the lowering of anchors in some cases! very
interesting and equally baffling.

IMHO this book is a must have/read if your into the UFO/paranormal experience!
Keel fell victim to the "phenomenon" himself whilst delving into this realm and some of the effects startled him and were quite unsettling for him.

Again Great Thread MirageMan, I'll be reading away over the Christmas period.

Well Before 1947 The Roswell incident...
there were Spacecraft Concepts In Illustrations and art work
from Pulp Sci Fi Magazine Covers
Yes Stories from Pilots from Both Sides of the War
Talked about Foo Fighters or Fire Balls

Earliest So far Ive have Seen was 1911 in Modern Electronics
although Blimp Like

originally posted by: DAVID64
Just marking my spot for now, in case I don't get to read it all in one sitting. Busy day ahead!
I've always been very interested in the history of UFOs, especially in ancient paintings.

I look forward to any thoughts you have about ancient paintings relating to UFOs/UAPs/etc (assuming you are talking about ancient paintings having an
angle in the UFO phenomenon) .

Just a heads up: there's a subscribe button at the top of each page that will alleviate the need to post to in an attempt "to mark your spot" - it
will be on your "MY ATS" - if you're already aware then just take it as some sincere, friendly advice.

SciFi is old but for modern writings you start with Frankenstein and Gullivers Travels. Genre
FOO Fighters can be explained as Ball Lightening to a degree or flares dropped from aircraft or fired from the ground.

a reply to: mirageman
Could the "Battle of LA" have been some manner of early hologram test? It is very reminiscent of the WWI rumors wherein religious projections would be
cast upon the sky above enemy trenches to panic enemy soldiers. The truth of this I know not, but it would certainly explain why artillery and rifle
fire could not hit what people could clearly see!

As for the Foo Fighters my dear friend traveled to Germany and dug up some old archives. I know from discussions that he believes they were German
devices. They certainly liked to experiment with exotic sciences.

He also mentioned that they had a 'sound cannon', which could be related to your Japanese death ray. Interesting!

Great thread sir, really interesting read and I learned a few new things..

What actually gets me is that even today we simply cannot explain a lot of these things ie silent self moving 'rockets' that change direction but
having no see able way to do it (thrusters on the sides of rockets would have left the same exhaust plume and these plumes have never been mentioned
so its not that way they change direction.

originally posted by: DAVID64
Just marking my spot for now, in case I don't get to read it all in one sitting. Busy day ahead!
I've always been very interested in the history of UFOs, especially in ancient paintings.

I look forward to any thoughts you have about ancient paintings relating to UFOs/UAPs/etc (assuming you are talking about ancient paintings having an
angle in the UFO phenomenon) .

.

I do hope this forthcoming article from him takes in to account the depiction of the Sun and Moon in old paintings which are often drawn as a form of
space craft in look when in fact its their way of drawing a planet / star...

So many folk still get caught by these paintings, even claiming alien death rays in some when its firstly the sun and secondly the sun's rays

Great quality thread! There is a remarkable and exacting expanse of collective UFO awareness on this forum. This thread alone, via both the initial
headline postings, as well as collective input responses, literally sum the underpinnings of the phenomena IMO.

Possibly reality as we experience is a relevant human response to a virtually` limitless environmental field of information. It may be that we
(humanity) are at a point in our species naturally progressive evolution that simply won't allow for a naturally willful, or paralleled artificial
modification of, this informational field. Thus we are effectively contained within it much like a fish is contained within water. UFOs may be
informational feedback constructs derived from our species' collective informational negative (memories) by a much older and evolved post biological
species. One that we have been living with humanity while we both share this yet understood environment of information.

1870 - Mt. Washington, New Hampshire. This photo is dubbed, "the oldest UFO photograph ever taken." This item was the subject of bidding at Ebay in
2002, when finally the photo was purchased for $385.00 by Samuel M. Sherman, who was the president of Independent-International Pictures Corp.
This was originally a "stereo" photograph. Certainly it was difficult to manipulate photos at that time, and remember, there were no flying objects
then; at least, not from this world.

1927 - Oregon. Taken in Cave Junction, Oregon. There is some question as to whether the photo was taken in '26 or '27, but nonetheless, if this is an
authentic photograph it is incredible. Reportedly snapped by a volunteer fireman.

1929 - SlideWard - Colorado Ward Sawmill, April - This incident is retold by the photographers daughter: "This photo was taken by my father Edward
Pline at the sawmill in Ward where we lived at the time. I think it was 1929. I was about six years old then. My father was there to photograph the
sawmill for some reason or another, and as he was taking the photo, he described a 'terrible thunderous bellow,' and a large round thing as big as a
very large boulder that moved through the air above them. You can see it in the picture.

1932 - St. Paris, Ohio. This picture was taken of a man named George Sutton near midday, May, 1932. We can see that it was in 1932 from the license
plate on the automobile in the photo that accompanied this shot.
The unidentified flying object in the picture could not have been a street lamp, simply because there were no street lamps at the time. There are no
power poles or power lines visible anywhere in this picture. This picture shows a vintage automobile.

originally posted by: mirageman
So is the Battle of LA really nothing more than a story of war jitters and nothing to do with alien spacecraft?

Sort of, but the story is more
than just war jitters. It's an example of how numerous witnesses can all observe the same event and perceive drastically different things. In this
example even the same witness perceived different things of the same event:

The acting commander of the anti-aircraft artillery brigade in the area testified that he had first been convinced that he had seen fifteen planes
in the air, but had quickly decided that he was seeing smoke...

Is that 15 planes, or is it smoke? This is sadly one of the factors that some
ufologists dismiss and say things like "anybody could tell the different between 15 planes and smoke", but this is where the war jitters probably had
a psychological factor. If there wasn't a war and if Japan hadn't attacked the coast a few days earlier, we might suspect the witnesses would be less
likely to expect to see enemy planes in the sky.

originally posted by: mirageman
American Physicist, David T. Griggs (pictured), was drafted in to investigate these strange sightings and actually flew on both training and combat
missions during the war. Working under the command of General Harry ‘Hap’ Arnold, Griggs was tasked with collating information on the ‘foo
fighters’ and filing reports through the echelons of command. In 1969, although he had none of the original reports in his possession, Griggs agreed
to an interview with James McDonald.

Griggs made it clear that many reports stemmed from misinterpretations. But he still felt that there had been something real involved without being
able to ever resolve the ‘foo fighter’ mystery.

I would love to read all his original reports. It's disappointing he didn't even have them
by 1969, I wonder what happened to them. Could they have been destroyed before they were FOIA'd? I tried searching for foo fighter reports one time
and I didn't come up with much that was useful, but Griggs' reports would be very useful.

I believe that the USA's FOIA first came into force in 1967, and basically established the proviso that agencies should tend toward disclosure of all
information - with the threat of courts being able to force disclosure if they saw no reason for the material to be withheld. This is in essence
similar to current practice in the UK with which I am very familiar, although today's practice has enshrined in law certain 'exemptions' by which
relevant information will always be withheld, or will be withheld if there is a justifiable Public Interest Test applied which suggests the bemefits
of disclosure are in some way outweighed.
In a basic conclusion, if an agency has sensitive material they do not want disclosed, there are always going to be perfectly legal ways and
supportive mechanisms in place to prevent disclosure. By and large, the destruction of evidence would not be required for fear of FOIA.
I think it is more likely that the previous generation's more laissez-faire record-keeping habits are to blame. Perhaps... :-)

An excellent thread, MM, and some very thoughtful responses too. A pleasure to read.

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